


Kindling

by Torpi



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: AU, Beren and Celegorm still fight over a girl, Celegorn’s Naming Sense, Feanor slays, Gen, kinslaying what kinslaying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-19 09:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29997582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Torpi/pseuds/Torpi
Summary: Stand-alone one-shots that take a small thing and change it to get to a better outcome. Also crack, since kindlings are used to start a fire. We know the noldor love fire.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	1. How Feanor got the Ships

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter is dedicated to moiety, who sparked (lol) this idea.

`You renounce your friendship, even in the hour of our need’, Fëanáro said. ‘Yet you were glad indeed to receive our aid when you came at last to these shores, fainthearted loiterers and wellnigh emptyhanded`.

'We renounce no friendship’ replied Olwë in a measured tone. ‘But it may be the part of a friend to rebuke a friend’s folly...we will never give them nor sell them for any league of friendship. For I say to you, Fëanáro son of Finwe, those are to us as are the gems of the Noldor: the work of our hearts, whose like we shall not make again`.

Fëanáro opened his mouth then stopped. He seemed to almost sway for a moment then he recovered, and looked on with burning eyes to Olwë. 

`Funny you said that the ships are like our gems`, he replied, showing the gems scattered on the beach. `Our gems are all over your place`.

`That is not my point`, Olwë replied bemusedly. 

`And funny you should call me son of Finwe when my father, the rightful King of Noldor was cruelly slain upon these very shores the valar deemed safe`.

`Your father-`

`Was he not your friend?`, Fëanáro interrupts him. `Should you not wish to aid his son in avenging him? And if you do not wish to give them, sell them, or teach us how to make them, then you can take us there yourself!`

`I do not aid you in your foolish pursuit because it is against the valars’ counsel. My father was lost before the Great Journey began, and yet I did not -`.

`You did nothing to avenge him`. Fëanáro nodded sagely. `In other words, you’re scared to go to sea`.

`We are not`, Olwë replied, his patience wearing thin. 

`I understand`, Fëanáro continued pityingly `the ships you love so much are not actually that well-made and will not stand the journey. I understand`.

`Yes they are! They are, I simply do not wish to leave them in your unskilled hands. It would sully them, to have your clumsy hands upon their oars, upon their sails`.

`Do your children know how you talk about these ships?` Fëanáro asked idly. Someone coughed pointedly from the back but he continued blithely. `You are ever a fainthearted loiterer. You shallow water mariner, I will take them and show you how it’s done. I’ll get to the other side of the sea unaided by any of your kin`.

`I will not let you!`, cried Olwë. `And if you do I shall pursue you to the ends of Arda`.

`What will you do, _sail_ there?` Fëanáro snorted. `I will tell your relatives about you. They will find out about your skills. From **me`.**

He jabbed the nearest ship with his covered spear. `Stop that`, Olwë thundered, ready to attack.

`I think it’s quite flimsy work`, Fëanáro remarked. `I can do better`, he announced.

`Do so and leave ours alone`, Olwë replied curtly.

`Yes, I do not think they would be able to take a good number of my men, they seem ready to sink at a little cargo`, Fëanáro continued in a musing tone, apparently forgetting where he was.

`You know well enough they can carry much!`, Olwë shouted at him. `Your _son_ was on the ships frequently`.

Fëanáro cocked his head. `Do you remember anything like that, Turkafinwë?`

`No, father`, he heard his son’s dutiful voice `they must be exaggerating`.

There were shouts of outrage from all the present teleri that sounded like thunder before a storm. 

` _You little_ -`

`Language`, ordered Fëanáro loudly, but the angry muttering continued a long time after that. Finally, all sound petered into silence. The ships bobbed gently on the waves and creaked. The silence was otherwise deafening. Things were hanging on a thin balance, poised at a tipping point before disaster struck.

`I still think I can do better`, Fëanáro repeated loudly after a while. `Now that I look at them more attentively, they don’t look that well`. 

`They are a work of art`, Olwë protested vehemently. `Do you even know what to look for?`

`Oh, I don’t know, what’s that scratch?`, Fëanáro asked, gesturing to the fourth ship in the row.

Olwë closed his eyes, asking Manwë for patience. `It is from a kraken!`

`Yes, flimsy work, like I said`, Fëanáro commented, shaking his head. `And that rope looks frayed as well, I would not trust my life on that boat.`

`We were about to change it!`, shouted someone from the crowd. `Then you barged in and stopped our work!` The angry mutterning raised again in a clamor of voices trying to both defend their ships’ qualifications and demand the noldor to get away from their precious ships. The noldor host shifted nervously, some almost drawing their swords. Fëanáro ignored them all. 

`Hmmm…that salt line doesn’t look too good`, he remarked to Olwë.

`It’s made on purpose`, Olwë replied through gritted teeth.

`If you say so`, Fëanáro said in a doubtful tone. 

`Take your words back!`, Olwë cried, his patience gone.

`I shall!` Fëanáro cried back. `You are not worthy of the name mariner or sailor. You flailing guttersnappers, floundering in ankle deep water, only going timidly out when the sea is calm and the light is shining gently, and yet you still want the sea’s maiar to hold you by your prow and guide your ships. You are worse than newly born babes, because while they lack in power they make up in curiosity. You have not even that!!!`

Olwë looked livid, but before he could say the word to start what would have been a bloody fight, Arafinwë’s host swelled the ranks of Nolofinwe’s host.

`I have some ships`, Arafinwë announced, `You can use mine, brother`, he added to Fëanáro. His face was white in the torch-light.

`They are not your ships`, Olwë told him dangerously.

`I made some as well`, Arafinwë replied respectfully. 

Olwë groaned and pressed his fingers to his eyes irritably. `Those are...not ships`

`I will get on it myself`, Arafinwë declared.

`No, do not, you will sink`, Olwë replied, alarmed. Then he sighed. `I will borrow you the ships, because you never said anything about conquering lands, or being a slave of the valar, and just talked about your father, who was also my friend`, he said finally. `If I find a scratch on them…`

`I will give them back improved!`, Fëanáro replied swiftly.

`I can see you running my ship straight into a reef`, Olwë said darkly. `No, I cannot leave it into your incapable hands. I’ll come myself. But after you get to the other shore, I shall leave and if you ever wish to come back you shall have to do it by your own devices`.

`If you say so`, Fëanáro agreed blandly, looking at his nails. `I’ll probably sail it perfectly if you demonstrate once. I can extrapolate`, he sniffed. 

Olwë threw him a look hotter than Aule’s forges, darker than the night and ordered for his people to ready the ships.

And so, a huge fleet, aided by swift winds, arrived on the shores of Beleriand.


	2. Rescue Team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the outlaws are killed, Beren is living his life hunting the creatures of Morgoth. Celegorm is on a hunting trip and the two meet in Dorthonion at the same time Sauron and Draugluin try to chase Beren out of Dorthonion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to KayleeArafinwiel who gave me the idea.

Beren was making rounds again. The birds chittered uneasily on this part of the plains next to the pine forest and somewhere far away, carrion birds were circling and diving, fighting among themselves for a carcass. The setting sun coloured all in a reddish haze, crying for the spilt blood. He was tired. He was lonely. He was still having nightmares of that last fight. He gripped his left hand, upon which his father’s ring shone unsullied by dirt or blood. His father’s knife, his friend’s hunting horn was all that he has left of them. Their broken bodies flashed into his mind again, making his fires of vengeance burn anew. There was a foulness in the air, a bad aftertaste, showing the enemy’s trail. The weeping grass, trampled viciously, blacked, went towards the spot where the birds fought. He wondered what he would find and hoped it would not be a human face. Or an elven one. Or an animal he had known. 

He first sees a leg. Then he finds big pieces of flayed skin, ripped, black wool still attached. A great horn. And then he arrives to see the body of a wooly rhinoceros on its flank, riddled with lance wounds, arrows, gutted, its intestines trailing in the dirt. His heart constricts. A movement makes him look more carefully. He hears a small snort, a weak cry. He sees a bloody baby rhinoceros, back leg broken, left eye crushed and one ear missing trying in vain to make his mother wake up. It kept nudging his mother with its head, trying to wake her up, crying pitifully. Its horn was also broken, he observes, and he is partially skinned as well. 

He approaches it carefully, trying to calm him. The rhino sees him and trumpets in warning, tries to attack him when he gets too close. Beren tries to calm it. He sings, although his voice cracks from disuse, talks gently but his voice is not enough. The rhino flails, hurting himself more. He sees the damage and his heart sinks. The carrion birds are even now attacking him, and he shakes his head and tries to dislodge them. Beren steels himself to go and end his suffering when the birds flee with a screech and he feels cold steel at his throat, a commanding voice ordering him to put his knife down.

He does so and then turns slowly, the bright steel at his throat. He sees an elf, eyes blazing with an inner fire, silver hair glinting, gems shining hard and white in his hair braided in a surprisingly simple style. In contrast, the ellon is dressed in nondescript hunting gear, a lance, and a bow at his back. 

Beren hastily greets the other in sindarin. His tongue stumbles upon the letters, but he is relieved, a heavy burden lifted from his heart. The darkness retreats a little. He was not found by the enemy. His heart of ice seems to burn anew with the newcomer. He recognises something similar in his burning eyes. 

The other coolly tells him he is addled if he can try to say that despite the evidence. The sword presses harder at his throat. Beren protests, finally finding his words, saying he wanted to help the rhino. `I am Beren, son of Barahir, slain with the others by Morgoth’s forces. I took back my father’s ring and I avenge my father, my kin, hunting all fell creatures that I see, and only those !` he cries, thrusting his left hand to show it, burning green, the silver serpents shining bright in the fading light. 

The ellon stops, the blade retreats from his throat. `You are friends with Findarato!`

`My father was`, Beren replies, his voice even. 

The other relaxes and almost laughs. `You should visit him then, in Nargothrond! Tell him your name is Yaisa Pamba`.

`What does it mean?`, Beren asks suspiciously.

`Friend of Finrod, in Quenya. It can also be used as a password to gain access to him`, the other replies, eyes glittering.

Beren relaxes fractionally. `What is thy name, stranger? For I told you mine, and now you know of me and my deeds, and yet I have no knowledge of yours`.

`Celegorm`, the other replies. 

`Just Celegorm?`

`Celegorm The Hunter, friends with Tilion, the Wanderer, the one you call the Moon`, the other replies. Beren makes to raise from his crouch and bow, when Celegorm stops him. `Not yet`, Celegorm tells him seriously, pressing the point of his lance to Beren’s throat. `When two males meet, they fight for dominance`, he continues. `We have to assert the power structure here. I know how it should be`, he says eyes glinting dangerously, `but clearly you do not. So as not to have any delusions, we should make that clear. Then we can work smoothly. That rhino is not a job for one`.

Beren purses his lips. `I would rather not, but I shall not give way`. 

`Very well. Then I shall start`, Celegorm replies pulling away the lance. Beren looks at him warily. He does not try to get up. Celegorm still has his weapon ready at hand. Celegorm looks at him haughtily and starts a poem in a language he does not know. `Continue`, he tells Beren after an excruciatingly long time pontificating on something Beren has no idea about. 

`What?` Beren blinks. He had looked at his hair more than anything. It seemed the safest option between not ignoring Celegorm and not trying to look too aggressive.

`Are you unfamiliar with poetry?`, he asks impatiently. `Forgive me’c he adds mockingly ‘I forgot, you must have not been born in the last hundred years. How old are you?` 

Beren opens his mouth but no words come out.

`This round you have forfeited thus you lost. Time for the second one`, Celegorm says, cracking his knuckles. Beren nods wearily and goes into a fighting stance.

`Listen`, Celegorm starts, `not all animals in nature fight for supremacy. For example, there is a species of ants that measure how big the space between their horns is to decide the winner.`

`So what exactly do you want to measure?` Beren asks him suspiciously. The baby rhino, surprisingly, is much calmer now, watching them attentively.

Celegorm laughs. `If we go with the theme, we might measure our hunting horns?` 

`Hunting horns?` Beren asks, confused and suspicious, his hand going to his belt. 

`Your horn is a bit higher to the left`, Celegorm tells him mockingly and Beren flushes. `Finrod would say we could weigh our balls as well`, he continues amused. 

`Balls?` Beren’s hand goes to his belt again. `You’re not getting to my balls. I’ll break your family jewels before you can try`.

`My family jewels are indestructible`, sneers Celegorm.

`Really?`, Mutters Beren.

`Really, both of them`, Celegorm replies, showing off the gems scattered in his hair. 

`I was not doubting the indestructibility of the jewels in your _hair_ `, Beren replies darkly.

`The first ones are a given`, Celegorm tells him. `A pity your hunting horn seems to be of substandard quality. I won this round as well. Let’s go to the third round now, shall we?`, he says cheerily. 

`What is the next contest going to be?`, Beren asks glumly `the one with the better hair?`

`That you would lose by default, and as I am not unfair, I shall give you an advantage`, Celegorm says, approaching him empty handed. He opens his mouth and smiles a friendly smile that makes Beren think of friends not seen in a long time and he smiles back automatically, and all air is knocked out of him from Celegorm’s punch to his stomach. Beren falls hard on his back, Celegorm following him closely, fist still buried deep in his stomach and he hits the ground hard. Celegorm leans grinning over him and Beren resists the urge to bare his throat. 

`That’s too bad. The last one **was** to be a prowess contest. I won all and you lost all`. 

`Two of them were just useless posturing that had nothing to do with you!` Beren protests. 

`I made the poem and the horn`, Celegorm informs him flatly. `And physical prowess alone should not be the deciding factor to dominance. You also need this`, he says rapping his knuckles hard on Beren’s head. `Now that this is over with`, he says dangerously, `we can finally take care of the rhino. She calmed down enough and does not consider you a threat anymore since I showed her I put you in your place`.

Beren nods wearily and Celegorm springs up and goes to the baby rhino.

`Poor baby`, Celegorm says, inspecting the numerous wounds, deftly cleaning, bandaging, singing and offering soothing words to the baby who is now limp and relaxed under his ministrations. Beren helps him by holding patches of skin to be sewn, handling him the cleaned knife, helping him cauterise the worst wounds. 

`Indeed he is hurt a lot`, Beren offers stiffly. He does not know how to talk anymore, the words clumsy in his mouth, like ill fitting stones grinding against his teeth. 

Celegorm looks at him. `It’s a girl`. He inspects the head wounds, getting dramatic about building her an indestructible horn with which to impale her enemies. `They will tremble at the sound of your steps. They shall fear your horn. You shall make it drink the blood of your enemies. And you will be red from their blood`. 

‘Maybe she wants a peaceful life grazing with that new horn’, Beren tempers him. And her horn is closer to a spade or a round paddle than a ‘sharp horn of death with which to impale her enemies`. 

Celegorm throws him a haughty look, turning back to the wooly rhino, ignoring him. ‘We have to get him to the closest dwelling’, he muses. ‘She cannot survive in the wild for a while, and maybe never. Shewill need a name as well’. He pauses and Beren waits, curious. ‘I shall name her Wooly Rhino’’, Celegorm announces.

‘Perfect name’, Beren replies weakly.

Celegorm ignores him. Beren coughs and asks for help in cutting a tangled patch of wool and pine needles on the rhino’s shoulder. 

‘Go and wash’, orders Celegorm brusquely. ‘Neither me nor baby rhino can stand your stench and unesthetic appearance anymore’. A huge dog had appeared silently at Celegorm’s side, Beren observes suddenly.

‘I shall wash’, Beren mutters. He gets a comb as well from Celegorm that whines to the dog that it seems he is taking care of two lost babies in the woods, and one of them is more hopeless than the other. 

When he comes back from the small stream twenty paces away from their improvised camp, night has fallen completely, the moon a small sliver in the sky. Celegorm looks at it and mutters a short encouragement for Tilion, to prevail against the hordes of Morgoth. ‘We need to get him to the nearest settlement. She cannot survive like this’, he tells Beren.

‘They are far’, Beren cries in dismay.

‘Do you regret trying to save her now? Do you give up if the road is hard?’ Celegorm asks him coolly, disappointment dripping from his voice. 

‘No!’ Beren shouts.

Celegorm nods. ‘We need to move her. She cannot walk too well yet; we need to get her either with a penn-lai or kinti tribe from the shadowy mountains. Those are the closest.’

‘What about Doriath?’ Beren asks hesitantly.

‘Do you wish to pass through the Mountains of Terror and Nan Dungortheb with an injured baby rhino?’ Celegorm asks him furiously. ‘I walked there, and the horrors inflicted on my men endure to this day. No, we do not go to _Doriath’_ , he spats. 

A foul darkness seems to seep in from afar and Celegorm turns quickly to the right. A howl, different from the forest wolves, different from the big cave-cats, or hyenas sounds in the night. Huan growls. ‘Enemies’ Celegorm hisses, taking his bow and stringing it with quick hands. ‘They will come back here. Take herand run. I shall hold them down and halt their progress. Go to the hills and wait there’. 

_‘Take her and run? What do you think a wooly rhino is, a mouse? She’s ten times my weight’_ Beren cries at him.

‘You can’t even carry her? Pathetic’, Celegorm throws over his shoulder disdainfully.

 _‘You carry her and run. I can hold the orcs just fine’,_ Beren replies hotly.

‘I don’t trust your skills. I don’t want to get an arrow in my back because of your incompetence’, Celegorm replies, whistling quickly. Huan barks once in agreement and starts running. A white horse appears from behind the trees, galloping towards them. His coat glows silver.

The baby rhino uneasily gets up and charges blindly away from the sound but collapses after a few paces.

‘We will go together’, Beren tells him grimly. ‘And all of us shall live’, he swears, jumping on the horse behind Celegorm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot the name of those insects I saw in a documentary. Oh well, I’ll find out eventually again.
> 
> The wooly rhinoceros apparently had a different horn, a bit more blunt and wide than the modern rhino. (Fossils discovered this january in Siberia).
> 
> It is written that Beren’s heart was cold as ice and he could not weep- regarding his feelings after his father’s death. Celegorm burns with vengeance and Beren recognises something of that in him. He feels kinship. Whether that is a good thing or not... we shall see.
> 
> Oh, and the name Celegorm says is a direct reference to my other fic, about Finrod; it literally means Steel Balls. (It makes sense if you have read the other). 
> 
> Why is Celegorm there? Things will make sense the last chapter XD. They were supposed to be totally unrelated one-shots, but they will have a sort of continuity between them. They are not going to be in chronological order though.


End file.
